Duke Ellingtons «The Nutcracker Suite»

Zurich Jazz Orchestra plays Duke Ellington’s «The Nutcracker Suite» conducted by Ed Partyka.
Klaus Henner Russius reads E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Nutcracker Tale.

The time immediately before Christmas opens one’s eyes to the most wondrous things: to glittering Christmas forests, enchanted castles made of marzipan, to mechanical toys that are miraculously alive.
But the pre-Christmas season also opens the ears to what remains of historic moments in jazz history: Duke Ellington and Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky meet in Las Vegas and Ellington decides to record an entire album of pieces by another composer for the first time: Tchaikovsky’s «The Nutcracker Suite» – not, of course, without enriching the romantic original with swing and improvisation. This illustrious round is now joined by the fantastic exuberance of E.T.A. Hoffmann and his fairy tale of the “Nutcracker and the Mouse King”. What happens then, you can see and hear at Rigiblick. Klaus Henner Russius reads, the music comes from the Zurich Jazz Orchestra.